E-mail this article

Sending your article

The Houston Texans had no answer for Tom Brady and the Patriots on Sunday afternoon as they rattled off five consecutive scoring drives in the second half for a 34-31 victory.

On Monday morning, it was Bill Belichick who had no answer, as the head coach kept tight-lipped when asked about Texans’ defensive end Antonio Smith’s claims that the Patriots’ timely second-half adjustments were suspicious.

“Yeah, I saw them,” Belichick said in regard to the comments. “I don’t have any comment on them. That’s a league matter.”

After the game, Smith said, “Either teams are spying on us or scouting us . . . I don’t know what it is. We had some ways that we were going to play this week that just got put in this week, and it was just miraculous that they changed up some things that they did on offense and keyed on what we put in this week to stop what they were doing. It was things that they had never done before out here. It just seems miraculous to me.”

The Texans led 17-7 at halftime, and Smith seemed befuddled by the Patriots’ comeback.

The second-half surge was rooted in the exceptional play of the New England offensive line, which kept Smith and Houston’s ferocious pass rusher, J.J. Watt, away from Brady in the second half, as he threw for 263 yards and a touchdown.

“I really got to give lot of credit to our guys up on the offensive line, I thought they did a really good job yesterday,” Belichick said Monday. “Not that the Texans didn't have a few plays there where they gave us problems, they gave everybody problems, but I thought overall, those guys really hung in there and battled. We were able to punch out a few runs and throw the ball over 40 times.”